Alexis Peskine (Kunst)

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Artist statement

I hear a Black teen-ager quick to say that she “got some Indian” in her family and realize that she doesn’t really know for sure, and that she might just have an issue with her skin color. So I think for a minute, and I depict Pocahontas and Uncle Ben at their wedding coming out of a little girl’s Afro puff. I see a magazine with a Black video vixen showing her rear while leaning on a 24-inch rim, so I think for a minute, take the rim out of the equation, and replace it with Venus Hottentot’s rear end. Now you have the same video vixen leaning on Venus Hottentot’s bottom, both of them standing on a Black woman’s head. This highlights a long tradition of sexual objectification of Black Women. I call the piece Hott’. I see Indiana Jones with his whip and it makes me think about slavery, then I wonder: would a White person think the same way? Am I paranoid? Why do I think this way? Then I think about my youth in Paris, France and the lack of Black heroes who weren’t coons, so I draw He-Man and Indiana Jones standing on top of a Black boy’s head and call it Masters of The Universal.

My work focuses on the societal traumas and the identity strain brought on by the power dynamics within gender, race, nationality and religion. I re-contextualize iconic symbols by putting them in odd pairings within unexpected environments.

My technique is unique. I use nails with different size heads to replace the hundreds, if not thousands, of dots that constitute an image. Some nails are hammered deeper than others to create a relief. To me, the nail represents pain as well as strength, so on a deeper level, it also represents transcendence. My process is the marriage of technology and tradition. I shoot photographs of people and digitally manipulate these images before I reproduce them with nails, gold leaf, lacquer and wood. My work aims to reconcile craft and innovation to prompt the interest of the viewer and make her or him reflect on the topic at hand.

If there were a defining aesthetic to my work, it would be that it bridges fine art with graphic art. My work is inspired by the psychology and the graphic cold boldness of Kara Walker, the illusionism of Chuck Close, the “inyofaceness”, swagger and bravado of Blaxploitation movie posters, the cleanliness, craft and expression of Murakami, the colors and pop poetry of Warhol and a sprinkle of Banksy’s humor. I use familiar images that people can immediately connect with, and pervert them to create an awkward, amusing, or uneasy reading of these well-known characters. In using these kinds of analogies I approach complex issues in a way that would not only interest those who are trained to appreciate fine art, but that would also appeal to the masses.
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